Instead of student loans, colleges should be allowed to offer admittance and diplomas in exchange for a fixed percentage (say 2%) of all the students future earnings. This would create a true partnership and align everybody's interests. The school could decide who is worth investing in and would retain a vested interest in the student's success after graduation. Schools would also have a big incentive to teach relevant curriculum that creates employable graduates. It should be a strictly voluntary negotiation. Non-sponsored students could still decide to pay tuition. Equal opportunity based on ability, not affordability.

Il Douchey:Instead of student loans, colleges should be allowed to offer admittance and diplomas in exchange for a fixed percentage (say 2%) of all the students future earnings. This would create a true partnership and align everybody's interests. The school could decide who is worth investing in and would retain a vested interest in the student's success after graduation. Schools would also have a big incentive to teach relevant curriculum that creates employable graduates. It should be a strictly voluntary negotiation. Non-sponsored students could still decide to pay tuition. Equal opportunity based on ability, not affordability.

Lukeonia1:Subby exaggerates. You could buy almost two textbooks with that kind of money.

I would say, 1 pamphlet and 2 kinkos binders.

I had a very smart friend in college who had to buy an 80 page book...the size of a paperback. Full of mathematical symbols and whatnot. A high level differntial equations type thing that I couldn't read. Looked like some Indiana Jones rosetta stone thing. I asked him how much it was...figuring 10-15 dollars...it was 65. This was in fall 1987.

Mugato:$400? Who gives a shiat? And I haven't been in college for about six years but what do they still need textbooks for?

There are a fair number of folks out there trying to get the costs down. See the OpenStax project to see a number of free textbooks- they have backing from a bunch of big donors to try and create basically the whole set of intro texts, all available free online or for printing costs if you want a dead tree version.

/Only have students buy one $30 book for my course- everything else is online, either on the web or through electronic reserve with the library.

Tanukis_Parachute:I had a very smart friend in college who had to buy an 80 page book...the size of a paperback. Full of mathematical symbols and whatnot. A high level differntial equations type thing that I couldn't read. Looked like some Indiana Jones rosetta stone thing. I asked him how much it was...figuring 10-15 dollars...it was 65. This was in fall 1987.

Sounds like the job of a photocopier and a bookstore with a generous return policy.

Tanukis_Parachute:Lukeonia1: Subby exaggerates. You could buy almost two textbooks with that kind of money.

I would say, 1 pamphlet and 2 kinkos binders.

I had a very smart friend in college who had to buy an 80 page book...the size of a paperback. Full of mathematical symbols and whatnot. A high level differntial equations type thing that I couldn't read. Looked like some Indiana Jones rosetta stone thing. I asked him how much it was...figuring 10-15 dollars...it was 65. This was in fall 1987.

One semester they had an assembly line of books, a student using a calculator with tape on it to add up the price, then the person at the end just ringing the sum up and swiping the credit card.

After rushing through I realized that my books were a few hundred dollars off what it should have been.

Looking closer at the paper tape I was handed, a $50 was entered as .50. A $49.95 book still came up as $49.95, but anything that ended in a 0 was off by that many orders of magnitude. Since not all my books were that way, the cost at the end was enough for nobody to realize a mistake was made.

ohknaks:Yaxe: /$560 dollars for textbooks 2013 addition textbooks because the professors farked the page numbers in the new edition to make money.

Thank god for Amazon's used books. That place used to save me hundreds every quarter. Especially when you could find the international edition of your $130 textbook for $30 or less.

There's actually a Supreme Court case about that being heard next week.

An international student, Supap Kirstaeng, told his family back in Thailand to buy his textbooks on the international market. He got them for a huge discount and shipped them to him privately. Currently, international textbooks are not allowed to be sold in the United States. After Mr. Kirstaeng read the books, he sold them in the US. The textbook company filed suit and the controversy has made its way up to the Supreme Court.

The lower federal courts have ruled that overseas goods, whether completely foreign or made of foreign components, are not subject to the first-sale doctrine. If the Supreme Court upholds the lower court, there are enormous ramifications for Americans and sites like eBay, Craigslist. If the first-sale doctrine overturned with respect to goods made of foreign components, royalties may have to be paid to the original manufacturer or even shut down. This would encourage American companies to offshore because they will have larger control of their product. The ruling would extend to intellectual property and media; this means no more Netflix. Let's hope the Supreme Court rules in favor of the consumer

rugman11:he lower federal courts have ruled that overseas goods, whether completely foreign or made of foreign components, are not subject to the first-sale doctrine. If the Supreme Court upholds the lower court, there are enormous ramifications for Americans and sites like eBay, Craigslist. If the first-sale doctrine overturned with respect to goods made of foreign components, royalties may have to be paid to the original manufacturer or even shut down. This would encourage American companies to offshore because they will have larger control of their product. The ruling would extend to intellectual property and media; this means no more Netflix. Let's hope the Supreme Court rules in favor of the consumer

Il Douchey:Instead of student loans, colleges should be allowed to offer admittance and diplomas in exchange for a fixed percentage (say 2%) of all the students future earnings. This would create a true partnership and align everybody's interests. The school could decide who is worth investing in and would retain a vested interest in the student's success after graduation. Schools would also have a big incentive to teach relevant curriculum that creates employable graduates. It should be a strictly voluntary negotiation. Non-sponsored students could still decide to pay tuition. Equal opportunity based on ability, not affordability.

BgJonson79:Il Douchey: Instead of student loans, colleges should be allowed to offer admittance and diplomas in exchange for a fixed percentage (say 2%) of all the students future earnings. This would create a true partnership and align everybody's interests. The school could decide who is worth investing in and would retain a vested interest in the student's success after graduation. Schools would also have a big incentive to teach relevant curriculum that creates employable graduates. It should be a strictly voluntary negotiation. Non-sponsored students could still decide to pay tuition. Equal opportunity based on ability, not affordability.

Med school I work for requires incoming students to buy a ~$2k HP laptop/tablet (the ones with the swivel screens). Oh but it's OK because the university buys them in bulk for the students, saving them perhaps as much as $100 per device.

They're shocked...SHOCKED...that students are starting to grumble about this.

jayhawk88:Med school I work for requires incoming students to buy a ~$2k HP laptop/tablet (the ones with the swivel screens). Oh but it's OK because the university buys them in bulk for the students, saving them perhaps as much as $100 per device.

They're shocked...SHOCKED...that students are starting to grumble about this.

You mean someone is shocked, in this day and age, that college textbook prices are set where they are at? It has been long known that those prices are set that way to ensure that the tenured professors that wrote them get at least half their annual six-figure income from textbook sales royalties. And that the textbook publishers get at least half their annual income from those textbooks.

ClavellBCMI:You mean someone is shocked, in this day and age, that college textbook prices are set where they are at? It has been long known that those prices are set that way to ensure that the tenured professors that wrote them get at least half their annual six-figure income from textbook sales royalties. And that the textbook publishers get at least half their annual income from those textbooks.

Please. The vast majority of tenured professors out there don't write textbooks.

whither_apophis:ohknaks: Yaxe: /$560 dollars for textbooks 2013 addition textbooks because the professors farked the page numbers in the new edition to make money.

Thank god for Amazon's used books. That place used to save me hundreds every quarter. Especially when you could find the international edition of your $130 textbook for $30 or less.

I just saw an article about this, you could turn around and sell them for twice what you paid and everyone's happy!

/do you have family in Thailand by chance?

We got four copies of the masters-level operations-research textbooks on half.com Malaysia. Cost about the same as one American edition.Ironic part is the book is full of the math and calculus of optimizing logistics like textbook distribution.

Glockenspiel Hero:Mugato: $400? Who gives a shiat? And I haven't been in college for about six years but what do they still need textbooks for?

There are a fair number of folks out there trying to get the costs down. See the OpenStax project to see a number of free textbooks- they have backing from a bunch of big donors to try and create basically the whole set of intro texts, all available free online or for printing costs if you want a dead tree version.

/Only have students buy one $30 book for my course- everything else is online, either on the web or through electronic reserve with the library.

ohknaks:Tanukis_Parachute: I had a very smart friend in college who had to buy an 80 page book...the size of a paperback. Full of mathematical symbols and whatnot. A high level differntial equations type thing that I couldn't read. Looked like some Indiana Jones rosetta stone thing. I asked him how much it was...figuring 10-15 dollars...it was 65. This was in fall 1987.

Sounds like the job of a photocopier and a bookstore with a generous return policy.

Our bookstore actually did this. Plato's The Republic was required reading for a class. The bookstore printed out the project Gutenberg text, bound it in spiral, and sold it right there on campus, hot off the presses ...

... for $65.00. Sixty. Five. Dollars. I shiat you not.

I asked them why it the hell was so expensive, and they could reply with naught better than 'it's required for a class'.

Meanwhile, the rest of us bought it at a regular bookstore for 3.99.

I don't know if the school ever sold any of theirs. When I went in before Christmas, they were all still sitting right there, untouched. Bright $65.00 sticker and all, awaiting the next semester's class's tinkling laughter.

Zel:We got four copies of the masters-level operations-research textbooks on half.com Malaysia. Cost about the same as one American edition.Ironic part is the book is full of the math and calculus of optimizing logistics like textbook distribution.

I have a textbook for ESL that was purchased in China (from a legit bookstore). I've looked at a copy of the American edition, and other than the foreword being in Chinese*, it is exactly the same textbook.

Cost in China: ~$6 US.Cost on Amazon right now: $93.

/* - oh, and the little thing on the back that says "For sale and distribution in the People's Republic of China exclusively". Fark you Pearson.

Sim Tree:ohknaks: Tanukis_Parachute: I had a very smart friend in college who had to buy an 80 page book...the size of a paperback. Full of mathematical symbols and whatnot. A high level differntial equations type thing that I couldn't read. Looked like some Indiana Jones rosetta stone thing. I asked him how much it was...figuring 10-15 dollars...it was 65. This was in fall 1987.

Sounds like the job of a photocopier and a bookstore with a generous return policy.

Our bookstore actually did this. Plato's The Republic was required reading for a class. The bookstore printed out the project Gutenberg text, bound it in spiral, and sold it right there on campus, hot off the presses ...

... for $65.00. Sixty. Five. Dollars. I shiat you not.

I asked them why it the hell was so expensive, and they could reply with naught better than 'it's required for a class'.

Meanwhile, the rest of us bought it at a regular bookstore for 3.99.

I don't know if the school ever sold any of theirs. When I went in before Christmas, they were all still sitting right there, untouched. Bright $65.00 sticker and all, awaiting the next semester's class's tinkling laughter.

I had a friend that went to a private college in Chicago that was down the street from North Eastern University, those of you from Chicago probably know what school I'm talking about. He said it was a school policy that the professors required you to bring your textbooks to class everyday and if your textbook didn't have the sticker from the school's bookstore on it you weren't supposed to be allowed to attend the class. The problem with this is that you could get all of your books from the North Eastern bookstore, or other bookstores in the area, for about 20% less than this schools bookstore.

ongbok:I had a friend that went to a private college in Chicago that was down the street from North Eastern University, those of you from Chicago probably know what school I'm talking about. He said it was a school policy that the professors required you to bring your textbooks to class everyday and if your textbook didn't have the sticker from the school's bookstore on it you weren't supposed to be allowed to attend the class. The problem with this is that you could get all of your books from the North Eastern bookstore, or other bookstores in the area, for about 20% less than this schools bookstore.

not_an_indigo:ongbok: I had a friend that went to a private college in Chicago that was down the street from North Eastern University, those of you from Chicago probably know what school I'm talking about. He said it was a school policy that the professors required you to bring your textbooks to class everyday and if your textbook didn't have the sticker from the school's bookstore on it you weren't supposed to be allowed to attend the class. The problem with this is that you could get all of your books from the North Eastern bookstore, or other bookstores in the area, for about 20% less than this schools bookstore.

How the fark could they even get away with that?

If it's a private school they can do *pretty much* anything they want; so long as it doesn't explicitly violate some serious law. Even public schools have 'codes of conduct' that reach far beyond the law - IE - you can be expelled from a public University for doing something completely legal in your free time.

They raised the cost of tuition by about $500 each semester this year. Luckily it's across all public NC universities so I'm not the only one hurting. My professors are pretty great when it comes to textbooks though. They try to keep the same text book across subjects (Organic Chem 1 & 2 have the same book, as does both biology intro classes). The classes where I have ridiculously expensive textbooks (I'm looking at you Cell Biology) they're pretty much invaluable as a resource if you're going into that field later on. And my calculus class has an edition from a few years ago because it does the job.

The "free market" is the opposite of open source. Why don't you tell me what YOU think the free market is? The free market is taking advantage of "the profit motive" that companies have, a drive to make more profits benefits everyone. And if you can't afford the cost then you are just not worthy of living in America.Open source is socialist nonsense designed to help those that deserve to be failures

So you think a profit motive is incompatible with open source? You consider Android a failure? I consider a free market to primarily consist of freedom to choose how you participate in it, which a profit motive is a natural extension of -- we agree there. I simply disagree that open source is incompatible with a free market, as it's been a willing (and successful) participant many times.

intelligent comment below:Dokushin: So you think a profit motive is incompatible with open source? You consider Android a failure? I consider a free market to primarily consist of freedom to choose how you participate in it, which a profit motive is a natural extension of -- we agree there. I simply disagree that open source is incompatible with a free market, as it's been a willing (and successful) participant many times.

Open source? it's a market place for apps

not to some off too snarky, but how many textbooks have you written and made available for open source? what quality control do open source textbooks offer?

I know farkers give off the impression that everyone of their professors wrote three books and demand that their students buy four of them, but that is really not that the case. I work in a department that has 100 faculty and only one has written a book.

yes, I will agree that new editions come out quite frequently and gotten out of hand, but look at a math book from the 60's and the lack of graphics will make you appreciate what we have today. Also, what is driving up the cost of books is not the content, but the supplemental stuff...websites that have material and quizzes, CD/DVDs with powerpoint lecture content etc. And most of it goes unused but survey of students and faculty state they want these resources and publishes have to respond. If a book is to have online resources, someone has to write the code, someone has to check it, some server has to be supported, etc. etc. etc. that adds $$$ to the cost of the book.

its not a perfect system, but it is partially the system we asked for.

as far as everyone talking about the great savings that international texts offer, where do you fall on this issue:

I give an assignment in the textbook to do problems 1-20 on page 86. student with an international textbook doesn't have problems on page 86 and even if they did, the edition sometime does not even have the same problem sets. How should this problem be handled?

/$560 dollars for textbooks 2013 addition textbooks because the professors farked the page numbers in the new edition to make money.

Actual former college faculty here. The faculty really and truly aren't responsible for the constant updating, revision, and other profit-making moves by the bookstore. Now, things like making you buy a $75 book and then only using five pages of it are admittedly dick moves, but those faculty members are inconsiderate people anyhow and they drink all the coffee in the lounge without making more, too. Believe me, it's not like we get kickback checks for "making" you buy the book; I always told students they could use older editions of the main text and put supplemental readings on paper reserve and online, and I almost always had the dead-tree text on reserve in the library as well. Now, if I start seeing kickback checks from the bookstore that might change.

Hyjamon:as far as everyone talking about the great savings that international texts offer, where do you fall on this issue:

I give an assignment in the textbook to do problems 1-20 on page 86. student with an international textbook doesn't have problems on page 86 and even if they did, the edition sometime does not even have the same problem sets. How should this problem be handled?

1) Have a personal copy of the text on reserve in the library so that students can scan or copy the problems from it.

2) If you don't have an extra copy, contact your library's reserves department and they'll scan the problems and host them in their online course reserves.

highwayrun:Yaxe: Actual college student here here, and I am not getting a kick.

/$560 dollars for textbooks 2013 addition textbooks because the professors farked the page numbers in the new edition to make money.

Actual former college faculty here. The faculty really and truly aren't responsible for the constant updating, revision, and other profit-making moves by the bookstore.

Actual college textbook department bookstore employee here. It's usually the publisher and not the bookstore that's responsible for that. The bookstore just gets the fun job of being the bearer of bad news.

In college I was in charge of our ACM chapter. The computer science faculty to let me come to each class and beg students to donate their used textbooks to us.

We put together a decent little library where students could check out the textbooks from the CS lab. I thought it worked reasonably well, and I wish more college clubs would arrange such things. Textbooks are just too damn expensive.